Chicken Water

I have chickens. I usually get up in the morning between 4:45 and 5:30 AM. Part of my routine is to make certain my chickens have food to eat to start their day. They get rice now, but I am switching them over to corn. I have both rice and corn available for them now, but they prefer rice over corn. Go figure!

Someone told me that rice is not good to give them to eat as there is too much oil in rice. That didn’t seem logical to me and to my dad, so I did a little research on the matter and found a website that had a chart listing the oil content within various grains. Rice and corn were within the list. The research was conducted at a university. The research showed that corn had over twice the oil content as rice. The information given to me by the man who is university educated in agriculture was wrong. He was passing along information he heard from his grandpa and dad. Yikes!

Now about the chicken water. I have a 1 gallon water container the birds drink from. I give them good, clean water and 3-4 tablespoons of raw apple cider vinegar in the water. About every 4-6 months I add some medication to their water that eliminates intestinal worms. My birds never get sick unless they eat an undesirable insect. Then, over night, they get over the bad bug they ate and are again healthy. My chickens look healthy and are indeed healthy. I take good care of them as they are my friends and they bring me great joy. I have several of them come and sit with me when I lounge on my zero gravity chair. They eat bugs from the property and the hens give me eggs. It’s a good deal for me.

When the hens have chicks, I have the pleasure of watching the babies grow into full grown chickens. I talk to them all and many of the older birds seem to understand much of my conversation. I don’t mistreat my chickens and in return they have built up a trust in me. I weed my ground with a Makita 4 stroke weed whacker. Many of the chickens (especially the young ones) follow behind me when I use the whacker. I make certain they are in a safe space so they are not hurt by flying debris. It’s really wonderful seeing about 20 birds around me eating bugs they find in the debris. I love my chickens and they seem to love me too.